Wednesday, October 7, 2009

From the moment we walked through the door, Ireland was on a mission to find pumpkins.

Eventually, she spied the Halloween department.

PUMPKINS!!!

Yes, lots and lots of plastic pumpkins.

But then, she noticed who was standing behind her.

A bad guy.

Now you may not be able to tell from the picture, but this fella is electronic. Sounds, lights, motion--it's got it all.So not only is this creepy guy three feet from my daughter, but he's moving and looking at her with those glowing red eyes that cartoon badguys always have.

She froze. "Papa, it's a bad guy." It was just above a whisper."He's scary" she said louder.

And he was.

We slowly backed away.

She was so scared that she eventually had to hop in the shopping cart.

We went to go make sure that Mommy was safe.But the back aisle was still a straight shot to the bad guy.She knew where he was, and she could see him.

We went home and I got ready for work and soon forgot about it.Until later that nigt when I was told that she was still worrying about "the bad guy at the market".

That's when I realized what I should have done. And what is probably going through her mind.

She has no reason to believe otherwise. She saw him with her own two eyes. She knows I saw it too. And instead of calming her fears, and explaining that it was fake, I "played along".Of course I didn't do anything to purposly scare her, but my actions (or lack there of) helped to support the fact that we were in the presence of evil.

Go back to your childhood, pull out the evilest villain you can think of, and then put him in the same room with you.

The poor thing was terrified. She knows she got away, but he's still out there--and he saw her. Will he follow?